By Robert Romano

Former Trump foreign policy campaign advisor Carter Page was a U.S. agent who reported on Russians to the CIA, not a Russian agent, a memorandum the FBI received as early as Aug. 2016 shows according to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report detailing abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) including spying on the Trump campaign in 2016.

But the Crossfire Hurricane team investigating the Trump campaign on false allegations they were Russian agents kept the extent of that relationship hidden from Department leadership and the FISA Court and instead used Page’s Russian contacts — that were for the purpose of gathering U.S. intelligence — as evidence that he was a Russian agent.

More than anything, it was Page’s contacts with Russians, including a trip to Moscow in the summer of 2016 to deliver a commencement address at the New Economic School, that enabled the spying on the Trump campaign in 2016 to go forward that might have otherwise never been approved.

According to the Horowitz report, “[O]n or about August 17, 2016, the Crossfire Hurricane team received information from another U.S. government agency advising the team that Carter Page had been approved as an operational contact for the other agency from 2008 to 2013 and detailing information that Page had provided to the other agency regarding Page's past contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers. However, this information was not provided to NSD attorneys and was not included in any of the FISA applications.”

That was in Aug. 2016, two months before the FISA warrant application against Page was completed. The FBI had proof positive that Carter Page was a U.S. intelligence agent who was reporting on Russian intelligence, exculpatory that might have given leadership at the department pause in obtaining surveillance on the Trump campaign, at the time the opposition party, in an election year.

And yet, per Horowitz, the full extent of Page’s relationship with the CIA was never forwarded to the National Security Division of the Justice Department, including to the Office of Intelligence, nor was it included in any of the FISA applications, including the renewals, even though information about Page’s status as an intelligence operative was requested by the Justice Department’s top brass.

According to Horowitz, “[W]hen Case Agent 1 was explicitly asked in late September 2016 by the OI [Office of Intelligence] Attorney assisting on the FISA application about Page's prior relationship with this other agency, Case Agent 1 did not accurately describe the nature and extent of the information the FBI received from the other agency.”

Then, the case agent included a comment stating that downplayed Page’s role with the CIA and that the information was dated: “He did meet with [the other U.S. government agency], however, it's dated and I would argue it was/is outside scope, I don't think we need it in. It was years ago, when he was in Moscow. If you want to keep it, I can get the language from the [August 17 Memorandum] we were provided [by the other U.S. government agency].”

But the inspector general found that was false: “the information Case Agent 1 provided to the 01 Attorney was inaccurate…” Why? Because, per Horowitz and as outlined in the memo the Crossfire Hurricane team sat upon, “Page first met with the other agency in April 2008, after he left Moscow (Page had lived in Moscow from 2004 to 2007), and he had been approved as an operational contact for the other agency from 2008 to 2013. Additionally, rather than being outside the scope of the FISA application, the FISA application included allegations about meetings that Page had with Russian intelligence officers that Page had disclosed to the other agency. Specifically, according to the August 17 Memorandum, Page provided information to the other agency in October 2010 about contacts he had with a Russian intelligence officer (Intelligence Officer 1), which the other agency assessed likely began in 2008. Page's contacts with Intelligence Officer 1 in 2007 and 2008 were among the historical connections to Russian intelligence officers that the FBI relied upon in the first FISA application (and subsequent renewal applications) to help support probable cause.”

In other words, the contacts Page had with Russians cited in the FISA application used by the government as evidence he was a Russian agent, upon examining the details, were evidence that he was a U.S. agent reporting on Russians to the CIA.

What’s more, if the Office of Intelligence had been alerted to this fact, that Carter Page was a U.S. agent, it would have been included in the FISA warrant: “The OI Attorney also told us, after being informed about information in the August 17 Memorandum from the other U.S. government agency, that if OI had been aware of this information at the time the application was being prepared, OI would have discussed it internally and likely would have disclosed the information to the FISC to ‘err on the side of disclosure.’”

Similarly, then-National Security Division Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stuart Evans said  when asked by the inspector general that the information that Page was a U.S. asset would have been included in the FISA application: “I think it would go in the application somewhere, be it in a footnote or elsewhere, if for no other reason than it also goes to the question of where the person's loyalties lie.”

And why might it have been included? Because it was exculpatory. It was a reason to say that Page was not a Russian agent and that he had reason to communicate with Russians as a part of his role as a CIA agent.

Per Horowitz, “The OI Attorney told us that it is relevant to know if the target of a FISA is or had been working on behalf of another U.S. government agency to ‘make sure that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing’ when seeking FISA authority. As noted previously, according to the OI Attorney, it would have been a significant fact if Page had a relationship with the other U.S. government agency that overlapped in time with his interactions with known Russian intelligence officers described in the FISA applications because it would raise the issue of whether Page interacted with the Russian intelligence officers at the behest of the other agency or with the intent to assist the U.S. government. Evans told us that information about a FISA target's relationship with another U.S. government agency is typically included in a FISA application. Evans also stated that OI would work with the FBI to fully understand any such relationship and describe it accurately in the relevant application.”

But that didn’t happen. Instead, the information that would have exonerated Page was excluded. According to Horowitz: “although this information was highly relevant to the FISA application, the Crossfire Hurricane team did not engage with the other agency regarding this information. In addition, in response to a question from the QI Attorney in September 2016 as to whether Carter Page had a current or prior relationship with the other agency, Case Agent 1 provided the OI Attorney with inaccurate information that failed to disclose the extent and nature of Page's relationship with that agency. As a result, the first FISA application, and FISA Renewal Application Nos. 1 and 2, contained no information regarding Page's relationship with the other U.S. government agency, and did not reveal that his relationship with the other agency overlapped in part with facts asserted in the application regarding Page's ties to particular Russian intelligence officers.”

Eventually, Page’s role as a CIA agent would bubble up again upon the FISA reapplications, this time in June 2017. At this point, to keep the spying going, a Justice Department lawyer allegedly altered an email from a CIA liaison stating that Page was source for the agency to say that he wasn’t a source. From the Horowitz report, “SSA 2 received an email from the OGC Attorney that appeared to be forwarding the Liaison's June 15 response email concerning Page's historical contact with the other U.S. government agency. However, the OIG determined that this forwarded version of the Liaison's response email had been altered. Specifically, the words ‘and not a 'source…’ had been inserted in the Liaison's June 15 response after the word "[digraph]." Thus, the Liaison's email was altered to read: ‘My recollection is that Page was or is and [sic] '[digraph]' and not a 'source' but the [documents] will explain the details.’”

So here again, material key facts — including that Page was a U.S. agent reporting on Russians to the CIA, not a Russian agent — that could have stopped the spying on the Trump campaign before it began were kept out of the hands leaders at the Justice Department making determinations about whether to pursue FISA surveillance on the Trump campaign and were hidden from the FISA court. When the issue came up again later, a Justice Department attorney altered documents — and has been referred for criminal wrongdoing — to enable the spying to continue past June 2017 in what ended up being the last FISA renewal.

By then, Special Counsel Robert Mueller had been appointed and the presumed true objective of the surveillance had been achieved: The President of the United States was now under a full-fledged criminal investigation. They didn’t need the surveillance anymore. Mueller would finish the job.

Horowitz asked officials why the information exonerating Page was sat upon and he got a lot of “do not recalls” from Justice Department lawyers and other forms of excuse-making. But the fact that the FBI and Justice Department went through such lengths to conceal exculpatory facts from federal court in order to protect their precious surveillance of a political campaign, and then the sitting President of the United States, is such an unbelievable abuse of power it warrants a full-scale criminal investigation, which fortunately is being pursued by Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham.

Carter Page and the American people deserve justice for this unprecedented fraud that was perpetrated on the nation for close to three years. Now, thanks to Inspector General Horowitz, we are one step closer.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

You’re either with the globalist elite, or you’re for restoring America. Pick a side.

 

By Bill Wilson

It always makes me chuckle when I see a writer at the Washington Post attack something or someone for being “Soviet style.” They have been doing it a lot lately. What is so funny about the slur, after all, is that for generations it was the Washington Post and its hangers on that cheered everything “Soviet,” turned a blind eye to mass murder on a scale unknown in human history. It was the Post and its Leftist managers that pushed for policies designed to undercut the work of Ronald Reagan, the man who almost single-handedly overturned the Evil Empire.

So, when Fareed Zakaria recently accused the Trump administration of “Soviet central planning”, it is worth dissecting the attack to see what is really going on. After all, it is not like the Post or its writers have a problem with “central planning.” What they oppose is central planning that does not advance their warped social-justice-warrior pap. 

The indictment is by now pretty standard. Trump has not embraced the “limited government” low spending mantra that Republicans are supposed to advocate. Zakaria recounts how the GOP has in the past pushed for lower spending, so-called “free-market” ideals and the elimination of tariffs. But in truth, it has not always been so.

First on spending, the fight over spending in a country that prints its own money and serves as the reserve currency for the world is a bit silly. For many years the GOP would in fact run campaigns on limiting spending. But in power, they rarely embraced it. The late Jack Kemp, icon of the free-market crowd, called reducing spending “root canal politics.” For too long this issue has been nothing more than a call for unilateral disarmament; Republicans can never call for spending while the Democrat-Left spent wildly buying votes from anyone willing to sell.

If now, Trump is honestly throwing away the straitjacket and advocating spending on things that can enhance American sovereignty, rebuild our industrial base and help the military recover from the endless wars of prior Administrations, that is great! Do it. And if this spending boosts the overall economy, so much the better.

The larger attack in the piece is that Trump has turned his back on “free-market” ideology and that the binary alternative is, of course, central planning. The fact is neither of these propositions are true.  

The “free-market” mantra has long ago been captured by the owners of large masses of capital.  What they seek is freedom to move their capital wherever they want with no penalty or tax — to “find the best return on investment.” That, however, is what has devastated communities across America. When Bill Clinton and George Bush pushed to get China into the World Trade Organization and thereby free any worry by the owners of capital of any penalty or danger, the rush was on. More than 60,000 businesses and over 5 million jobs rushed to China to “maximize profits.”

No cost was assigned the millions of lives harmed. Nobody was held accountable to the tens of thousands of communities destroyed. The cost of addiction, family break-up, lost dreams was never calculated. But there was a cost and it has been the taxpayers who have borne the bill, not the people who caused it. If now Donald Trump moves against the globalist suicide pill, if he forces a better deal with Mexico and Canada, if he demands that China play fairly or else pay a tax, if he insists on the restoration of the American industrial base, that is not free-market but it surely is pro-American. 

And that is the real issue at play here. The Post and the entire corporate “media” machine does not want a free, sovereign United States. They want a submissive, submerged U.S. They want international organizations — that American taxpayers are forced to fund — to call the shots.  They want the sons and daughters of America’s working families to be policemen to the world, spilling their blood so the world can be safe for mega-banks to move their capital at will. They demand that their view of justice become the norm everywhere, they hate dissent and they will not tolerate independence in any form.

When President Trump moves to defend our national sovereignty at the borders, demands that other nations deal fairly with us and that we have the right to build our own economy, and moves to end the insane endless wars of the past 20 years, he is striking a blow at the heart of the globalist, internationalist ideology that has dominated the world for far too long. That is why the institutional, establishment left and right attack his policies. And, it is why the swamp has come after the President with a bloodlust not seen before in America. He is directly attacking their raison d’etre. It truly is an existential battle. 

There will be no middle ground in this fight. Either you will stand with the globalists and their vapid ideology or you will stand for restoring America and for all American citizens. Time to pick a side.

Bill Wilson is the President of the Market Research Foundation and a former board member and former President of Americans for Limited Government. 

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ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured column from Fox News, Andrew McCarthy notes that the FBI’s determination to launch the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation of President Donald Trump falsely accusing him of being a Russian agent might have been allowed under Justice Department guidelines, but that does not mean it was appropriate given the very weak evidence and other stakes involved, including public support for intelligence institutions:

Andrew McCarthy: Inappropriate 'for the FBI to open a case on sparse evidence in light of the possibility that the Bureau would interfere in, and potentially even swing, an American election'

By Andrew McCarthy

There are many things to be said about the 476-page FISA abuse report filed by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz – too many to say in a single column. So we’ll try to take them in small bites. Let’s start with an IG’s finding that the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation was properly “predicated.”

To understand what (as in how little) the report actually says on predication, Horowitz’s two baseline assumptions must be considered.

First, regarding the quantum of fact-based suspicion necessary before an investigation may properly be opened, the FBI sets the bar so low it is illusory.

Essentially, a hunch will do for purposes of opening a preliminary investigation. Something only slightly less nebulous, such as a suspicion that can be articulated reasonably (though not convincingly), will do for a full-blown investigation.

The idea is that, **legally,** the FBI must be given the widest of berths to enforce the law and protect national security. Practically, the expectation is that the agency’s focus will be confined to serious cases, not bogus ones, due to the guidance of its supervisors.

Second, it is not the IG’s job to review discretionary judgments by government officials, only to determine if laws, rules, policies, or procedures have been violated.

The interplay between these two assumptions renders meaningless the IG’s determination that the investigation was properly predicated.

Essentially, the IG is saying that, underwritten procedures rather than day-to-day common sense, there are no significant impediments to the FBI’s opening of any investigation.

Sure, there are a few obvious no-nos. A probe may not be opened, even preliminarily, based on invidious discrimination (race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, etc.). It must not be opened for a non-law-enforcement or national security reason – e.g., an agent may not snoop around financial institutions because he’s curious about how much money his neighbors make.

But there’s not much more to it than that. If a person of no known background, or even a track record of deception, tips an FBI agent that Donald Trump is an agent of the Kremlin, the IG is not going to say it would be improper for the FBI to poke around.

He is apt to accept the Bureau’s self-serving claim that, even if the grounds of suspicion were not strong, the nature of the allegation was so disturbing that it would have been irresponsible not to investigate.

Logically, of course, that means no allegation, no matter how thinly supported, is beyond the pale if it sounds sensational enough.

Add to that the IG’s caveat that reviewing discretionary decisions is not in his purview. In other words, as long as judgment calls are made within the context of a case that has been opened legitimately (as that concept is forgivingly defined in FBI regs), it is not the IG’s function to assess those judgment calls – including the decision to open the investigation in the first place.

The IG is not there to tell us whether a decision was appropriate, much less prudent, or at least carefully considered. If the predication is adequate, then the IG tells us he cannot second-guess the investigation’s commencement.

As a result, the IG may not (or at least does not) tell us the only thing that matters: Was it appropriate under the circumstances to open an investigation of the Trump campaign?

This is the nub of Attorney General William Barr’s disagreement with the report.

We have a norm in the United States against the incumbent administration’s use of the government’s intelligence and law-enforcement apparatus in the service of domestic politics.

Moreover, counterintelligence powers, which are vital to protecting our nation from terrorist attacks, hinge on public and congressional support. They will lose that support if they are exploited for political purposes.

Consequently, if the FBI is going to breach that norm, it must have strong evidence to believe a political campaign is conspiring with a foreign power.

That is Barr’s point. He is not talking about what the FBI may do in a run-of-the-mill case under its ever-elastic predication guidelines. He is talking about what it must do in order to make responsible decisions in light of the stakes involved.

The Horowitz review does not account for that. It simply says the investigation was properly predicated under the FBI’s low-bar standards for opening cases.

It does not say it was appropriate for the FBI to open a case on sparse evidence in light of the possibility that the Bureau would interfere in, and potentially even swing, an American election.

Permalink here.

 

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